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Book ^-C\J:Li4— 



Jenifer ad Sermon 

ON THE LATE /• fc f 

HON. CHRISTOPHER GORE', 



rORMERLY 



GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



PREACHED AT KIKCt'S CKAFEIi, BOSTON 



MARCH 11, 1827. 



By F. W. p. greenwood, 

M 

ASSISTANT MINISTER OF KING's CHAPEL, 



BOSTON : 

WELLS AND LILLY— COURT-STREET. 

1827. 



t 






In excliaiige 
•M-Ar. 2 9 i:i3 



SERMON 



REVELATION, XX. 6. 

On such, the second death hath no power. 

The first death is the death of the body ; the 
quenching of that undiscovered spark which warms 
and animates the human frame ; the return of our 
dust to the earth, as it was ; the event which hap- 
peneth unto all men ; " the sentence of the Lord 
over all flesh." We cannot prevent it. Like birth, 
it is inevitable. Helplessly, and without our own 
will, we open our eyes at first to the light of day ; 
and then, by an equal necessity, we lie down to 
sleep, some at this hour, and some at the next, 
on the lap of our mother. This death is an or- 
dinance of God. It was intended for our benefit; 
and can do us no essential harm. It disturbs not 
the welfare of the soul ; it touches not the life 
of the spirit. 

The second death is more awful and momentous. 
It is the death of that which the first death left 
alive. It is the death of reputation, the death 
of love, the death of happiness, the exile of the 
soul. It has no connexion with the fir«t death : for 



its causes are all engendered in the life of the body. 
Unlike the first, it is a death which all men do not 
die. Unlike the first, it is a death from which there 
is a way of escape. And jet there are more who 
are terrified by the first death, unimportant as it is, 
than there are who fear the second, though it in- 
cludes every woe. And almost all men attempt to 
fly from the first, though they know it to be impos- 
sible, while few take pains to avoid the last, though 
it is within their ability to do so. 

The first death, then, is invested with complete 
power over all men. It withers human strength; it 
respects not human authority. Rank is not exempt 
from it ; art cannot elude, riches cannot bribe, elo- 
quence cannot soften, nor can even virtue overcome 
it. But with that second and far more dreadful 
death, it is not so. There are those over whom it 
hath no power. Any one may join their number. 
There is no mystery, no hardship in the terms of 
the blessed exemption. All may read, all may 
coaiply with them. They arise from the nature of 
the second death. For as nothing but vice and dis- 
obedience towards God can aifect the life of the 
spirit, and invest the second death with its power, 
so it is righteousness only and the healthful fruits 
of religion, which can defy and render it powerless. 
" In the way of righteousness is life ; and in the 
pathway thereof there is no death." So little is 
the first death considered, and of so small account is 
it made, in many parts of Scripture, that we arc 



told in some of its sublimest strains, that the belie- 
ver in Jesus, the true Christian, "shall never die.'- 
Goodness carries with it the eternal principle of life, 
deeply engrafted into its constitution ; so that it can- 
not lose it, nor part with it. It is the good, the 
benevolent, the pious, and the pure, to whom life is 
promised ; and " on such, the second death hath no 
power." 

In the sight of men they die ; and so far, there 
is indeed but one event to the righteous and the 
wicked. But this is only the first, the corporeal 
death ; and in all essential respects they live. 

I. They live, in the first place, in the good which 
they have done ; in the indestructible life of their 
virtuous deeds. We all exert an influence on all, 
whether it be less or more. Our good example 
both lives with us, and remains after us. It strength- 
ens the cause of virtue, and virtue is life. It is the 
occasion of happiness to an unknown extent, and 
happiness is life, the divine essence of life. But in 
leaving a bad example behind him, a man dies twice. 
For misery is death, and he has sowed the seeds of 
it. His actions work out their deadly consequences 
when he is gone ; and in him, and by him, other men 
are dying ; and over him the shades of the second 
death gather and descend, and the might of its 
power is on him. On the righteous it has no power. 
In the light of Heaven their actions live, and live 
forever ; because their effects will continue with an 



increasing brightness of manifestation, when even the 
world, in which they were performed, shall have 
sunk into chaos and death ; and in the life of their 
actions, they themselves will live. 

II. They live, secondly, in the life of affectionate 
memory, and in the beatings of grateful hearts. 
This is a life which the unrighteous have forfeited. 
" Infamy doth kill." The words of the poet are 
the words of soberness, and are confirmed by the 
words of scripture. " The memory of the just is 
blessed ; but the name of the wicked shall rot." 
We all try to forget a bad man as fast as we are 
able ; for to remember him, gives us nothing but 
pain. And even when it is impossible to forget him, 
his memory is coupled with condemnation and death. 
His character is dead, and we mourn over it ; his 
reputation is lost forever, and with it he dies again, 
he suffers the second death. But over the grave 
of the good man, endearing recollections, fond re- 
grets, and tributes of honour and love, spring up 
like flowers, though not like flowers to wither, but 
to bloom and breathe out their odours perpetually, 
borrowing and bestowing life. His kindness, his 
benevolence, his uprightness never die ; nor do they 
permit his name to die ; they embalm it, and keep 
it fresh, with spices more precious and more effec- 
tual than the old Egyptians used; for what is the 
embalming of the body, to the embalming of the 
spirit: the preservation of a useless, untenanted 



frame of dust in houses or catacombs, to the hvely 
presence of worth and beauty and love in the sacred 
home of the heart. The second death hath no 
power over such as have kept their names ahve, and 
their characters from reproach or oblivion, by se- 
curing the attachment and veneration of those whom 
they leave behind them. 

III. But there is a yet more important sense in 
which the righteous live, and are exempted from 
the power of the second death. In the favour, and 
presence, and glory of God, they live. In endless 
joy, and happiness, and improvement they live. They 
live with their risen and ascended Saviour, whom 
they followed, and in whom they slept. Like him, 
they died once ; and like him death hath no more 
dominion over them. They have cast off the weeds 
of the flesh, and in the courts of the kingdom of 
Heaven they have put on the garments of light and 
immortality. 

Mourn, then, for the righteous dead. Mourn that 
you are bereaved of their society ; mourn that you 
have lost their counsel, their presence, their sympa^ 
thy. But mourn not as those who have no hope. 
Remember that on such the second death hath no 
power. In their good actions, in their precious 
memory, in the resurrection of the just, they live, 
they live the life everlasting. They are safe ; the 
first death did not harm them, and they can die no 
more. They are safe; "their souls are in the hand 
of God. and there can no torment touch them.-' 



Such should be our mourning, my friends and 
brethren of this society, over one of our distinguish- 
ed members, who has lately departed from among 
us, and from this mortal life. 

The good are given to us for our example. It is 
proper that their characters should be impressed 
upon our minds; that their peculiar excellences 
should be delineated ; so that we may be excited 
and aided to imitate them. 

The character of our deceased brother belongs to 
the public. It belongs to the city of which he was 
a native ; to the state and to the nation which in 
high capacities he served so well. It belongs also 
to us ; for as a religious man and a Christian he had 
joined himself with us, and given us a peculiar claim to 
his virtues. There is another hand which could bet- 
ter have pourtrayed them for you than I can; there 
are other lips by which they could have been de- 
scribed to you more justly and with a more persua- 
sive force. He who on account of his early intimacy 
with Mr. Gore, as well as seniority of office in this 
church, would have been the person to draw his 
character, and hold up its excellence before you, is 
prevented from discharging the sad duty by the 
providence of God. By the kind assistance, how^- 
ever, of other friends of the deceased, I shall endea- 
vour to supply, as far as possible, what I feel to be 
my own disquahfications, and almost entire deficien- 
cy of personal knowledge. 



Christopher Gore was born in Boston, in the 
year 1758. His father was a highly respectable 
mechanic, who by a course of honest and skillul in- 
dustry had acquired a large property. At the 
breaking out of the troubles between this and the 
mother country, he went to Halifax ; as he was fa- 
vourably disposed toward the government under 
which he had always lived. But he afterwards 
returned to Boslon, and died here in the year '95. 

The son received his early instruction at the pub- 
lic schools of this town. He then entered Harvard 
University, and was graduated there in 1776, at the 
early age of seventeen. Soon afterwards he com- 
menced the study of law with the late Judge Low- 
ell, and continued with him through his whole pe- 
riod of study, both as a pupil and a member of 
his family. This was a situation combining moral 
and intellectual advantages, such as are rarely offer- 
ed to any young man ; and Mr. Gore was able to 
appreciate and improve them. When he entered 
on the practice of his profession, he came to it not 
only with a mind prepared by a judicious course of 
study, but with the enviable recommendation of an 
uncorrupted youth. 

He rose rapidly in public esteem, as a sound law- 
yer, as a politician, in the aiost generous sense of 
that word, as a true patriot, and as an honest man. 
He stood among the first at the bar, where his 
practice was extensive and lucrative* His fellow 
citizens manifested the regard in which they held 
him, and the confidence which they placed in him, 
by sending him, with Hancock and Samuel Adams, 

2 



10 

to the Convention of this State, which considered 
the adoption of the national constitution. This was 
before he had attained the age of thirty. 

In 1789, Mr. Gore was appointed by President 
Washington, United States Attorney for the Dis- 
trict of Massachusetts. He was the first person 
who held the office ; and coming to it in times of 
great trouble and distraction, he had many serious 
difficulties to encounter in discharging its duties.* 
But he encountered them with the manly intrepidity 
and unbending rectitude, for which he was always 
remarkable, and so he overcame them ; and it was 
probably his conduct in this critical situation which 
obtained for him the appointment from the Chief 
Magistrate to be one of the Commissioners under 
the fourth article of Jay's treaty, to settle our 
claims for spoliations. The appointment was made 
in 1796; and Mr. Gore's colleague was the late 
celebrated William Pinkney. 

While in England, Mr. Gore secured by his gen- 
tlemanly deportment and amiable qualities the re- 
spect and attachment of all who became known to 
him; at the same time that by his assiduous atten- 
tion to business, his profound knowledge of commer- 
cial law, his laboured arguments, and his personal 
influence, he recovered sums to a vast amount, for 
citizens of the United States.t 

He remained abroad in the public service till 1804. 
When his friend, Mr. King, then our minister at the 
court of London, returned to this country in 1803, 
he left Mr. Gore there as charge d'affaires ; in 

* See Note I. + See Note II. 



11 

which station, it is unnecessary to say, he bore him- 
self honorably and ably.* 

He was welcomed home by the strongest marks 
of public favour. He was elected to the Senate of 
our State, from the county of Suffolk, two succes- 
sive years ;t and the next year to the House of Re- 
presentatives, from this town. In 1809 he was 
chosen Governor of the State. 

It is well known by those who remember that 
turbid time, that if a man's character was ever tho- 
roughly sifted and scrutinized, it was when he con- 
sented to appear as a candidate for the office of 
Governor ; and if a spot was to be discovered in it, 
it would most probably be discovered then. It 
would be highly improper for me to enter into any 
of the political questions which were so warmly 
agitated at that period ; nor am I inclined to do so. 
But I hold it to be my duty to say, that notwith- 
standing all the zeal and activity of Mr. Gore's op- 
ponents in searching into his life, and amidst all the 
abuse which was the habit of the day, not one 
charge of moral delinquency Avas sustained against 
him, or even pretended. This fact is of itself a 
eulogy. The whole amount of the accusations 
against him was, that his father was a royalist, and 
that he was himself tinctured with the same par- 
tialities. The simple truth is, that though the father 
was a royalist, he was a good man, and had a right 
to his opinions; and that the son was at the first, 
and always continued to be, in principle, in feeling, 
and in practice, a patriot and a republican. 

* Sep Note ni. t 1806 anrl 1807. 



12 

Mr. Gore was Governor of Massachusetts but one 
year."^ At the next annual election the political 
sentiments of the majority of the people had chang- 
ed, and the opposing candidate, Mr. Gerry, was 
chosen to succeed him. 

In 1814, Mr. Gore was again brought into public 
life, by being appointed by Governor Strong, during 
a recess. Senator to Congress, and afterwards cho- 
sen to the same office by the Legislature at their 
meeting. He served in this capacity about three 
years, and then withdrew into final retirement. 

That the subject of this sketch enjoyed through 
life a high degree of popularity, and was thought 
worthy of being placed in stations of great respon- 
sibility, will not be judged remarkable, when we 
consider the character of his mind, his manners and 
his virtues. 

Though he might not, perhaps, be called a man 
of genius, in the common acceptation of the term, 
because reason and not imagination reigned para- 
mount with him, yet I can hardly understand how 
a person can be without genius, who has the power 
within him, let it be called what it may, of compre- 
hending extensive and intricate subjects, of seizing 
strongly on their prominent points, and of present- 
ing them to others in a persuasive and convincing 
manner. It may not make him a poet or an elo- 
quent orator ; but it conducts him to the same re- 
sults, and is not liable to the abuses of what is com- 
monly denominated genius. Mr. Gore's mind was 
clear, acute, and discriminating. It was of a steady 

* ?ee Note IV, 



13 



and decided cast, and yet liberal, unprejudiced, and 
open to conviction. He had cultivated it with assi- 
duity and care. He kept himself familiarly acquaint- 
ed with the literature of the day, and was an excel- 
lent classical scholar. He has left nothing as the 
fruit of his studies and his pen but a few political 
essays in the daily papers, and some unpublished le- 
gal opinions and arguments. These are distinguish- 
ed, I am told, by justness of thought and entire 
purity of style. 

His manners were of the best class of that school, 
generally termed the old school. They were those 
of a true and a finished gentleman; dignified without 
pride, elegant without pretension, and courtly with- 
out dissimulation or hollowness; in short, the inter- 
nal grace and polish externally manifested. The 
effect of such manners was assisted and completed 
by the gift of uncommon personal beauty. 

I have said that in his youth Mr. Gore was vir- 
tuous and uncorrupted; he was so in manhood, he 
was so in age. His was a pure spirit, high and look- 
ing upward, keeping itself clean from contamination. 
"His taste was refined; his sensibility acute; his 
feelings manly, generous, independent. He had the 
most lofty and elevated ideas of public and private 
duty ; and his conduct was always in perfect confor- 
mity with his principles. In times of excitement 
he was calm, and just ; in times of corruption pure. 
He never sought popularity, but it pursued him.'' 
He lived not for himself. By kindness, cheerfulness, 
and charity, he diffused happiness around him. He 
was remarkably accessible and attentive to young 



14 

men; discerning talent and merit, and helping them 
forward. It was in his nature to be hospitable ; 
and his wealth, and the circumstance of his having 
no children, enabled him to be extensively and boun- 
teously so ; and not only hospitable, but in various 
ways useful to the community. A large estate 
which he purchased in the neighbourhood of Bos- 
ton, he embellished and improved with taste and 
discernment. Sensible of the value of a judicious 
system of agriculture, he endeavoured to bring 
others to a sense of it by his example. Nature has 
been bountiful to our land, and we need but the 
hand of art, skilfully applied, to render it more 
lovely and more fruitful. It is in this country, this 
new country, that the labours of the active, tasteful, 
improving agriculturist are particularly called for; 
and here, above all other places, such a man is emi- 
nently a public benefactor. 

Mr. Gore was a useful member of all our impor- 
tant literary societies; and to some of them he con- 
fined not his usefulness to his life-time. To the 
American Academy, and the Massachusetts Histori- 
cal Society he left valuable bequests; and he made 
Harvard College, of which institution he had been 
for some years a fellow, his residuary legatee. I 
mention this last donation with peculiar pleasure. 
It proves his attachment to the place of his educa- 
tion ; it proves his conviction that it was worthy of 
his bounty ; it adds another to the many delightful 
testimonies in its favour. And I wish that others 
might evince their regard for the college, by liber- 
ally aiding it, instead of by the more questionable 



15 

method of aiding the illiberal clamours which have 
been raised against it. 

Mr. Gore's connexion with our religious society 
was of the most interesting and beneficial nature. 
He joined it not long after the ordination of our 
senior minister, and was for many years a member 
of our vestry. It was an encouraging circumstance 
for us, that at a time when our church was the only 
avowed unitarian church in the country, two such 
men as Mr. Gore, and his friend the late Judge Mi- 
not, young lawyers of standing and respectability, 
should have united themselves with us. And it was 
an honourable circumstance for them, that disre- 
garding the unfavourable effect which the declara- 
tion of their sentiments might have on their world- 
ly prospects, they nevertheless openly attached 
themselves to an excommunicated church, and fear- 
lessly espoused the cause of unitarian Christianity. 

During the last years of his life, Mr. Gore was 
a martyr to an excruciating disorder, which seized 
violently on his constitution, and defied all remedy — 
and like a martyr he endured his sufferings. It was 
sad to see those benevolent features racked with 
agony ; it was sad to see that once tall and erect 
form literally bent double by the overmastering 
hand that was upon him ; — but it was also consoling 
and animating to behold the spirit undepressed, re- 
fusing to yield, victorious. Though the frame was 
bowed down, the soul was always upright; and the 
mind lost none of its graces and attractions amid the 
\vrecks of his manly beauty, but rather shone with 
added lustre through the darkness of his corporeal 



16 

afflictions. Faithful, cheerful, and grateful to the 
end, he gave up his mortal breath on the first of 
March, in the 69tli year of his age. 

In the irreparable loss which his friends and con- 
nexions, and more especially the wife of his youth, 
have sustained, they have all the consolation which 
death can ever leave, or Providence can send. 
When they look back upon his life, every thing 
there is grateful to memory ; and when with Chris- 
tian hope they follow him beyond the grave, they 
are assured that on a spirit like his the second death 
hath no power. 

As the community had once an interest in the life 
and character of our departed friend, so may it now 
be instructed and benefited by the event of his de- 
cease. " Such a man's death," and I now use the 
words of one who knew him well, '•'Such a man's 
death, in the fulness of life, would have been a pub- 
lic loss. Such a man's excellent example continued 
to the close of a long life, is a great gain — it is a gain 
to our human nature — it shows the nobleness of its 
origin and character — it cannot be too much che- 
rished by those who witnessed it, or may hear of 
it. A republican government, of all others, is most 
benefited by good examples; for virtue is its only 
strength." 



NOTES 



FURNISHED BY A FRIEND WHO WAS INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED 
WITH MR. gore's CHARACTER. 



I. 

Those, who were in full life at the commencement of 
the French revolution, will recollect the shock which 
that tremendous explosion gave to all the civilized world. 
In no part of it, were the effects more deeply felt than 
in our own. It even agitated the justly popular adminis- 
tration of Washington. The people from sympathy 
naturally took side with the revolutionists of France ; and 
all the influence of Washington could not prevent the 
most alarming breaches of our neutrality, by fitting out 
privateers to cruise against the commerce of Great Bri- 
tain, by the sale of prizes, by the condemnation of ves- 
sels under our jurisdiction, and finally by capturing them 
within our waters. Boston was one of the principal 
scenes of these public insults. Washington was compelled 
to recall the exequatur of the French Consul in this port, 
for his insolent violation of his own duties and our rights. 
Mr. Gore managed all the legal proceedings in these 
cases, to the great diminution of his popularity at the 
moment, but highly to his honour in the issue. 

II. 

Mr. Gore's and Mr. Pinkney's great exertions during this 
commission which lasted nearly eight years, are well known, 

3 



18 



but it is not so generally understood, that to Mr. Gore 
one large description of sufferers are principally indebted 
for the recovery of their claims. Mr. Pinkney, whose 
eminent talents are universally admitted, had great doubts 
as to that class of captures, which were made under the 
rule of 1756. Mr. Gore made a very elaborate and 
powerful argument in favour of these claims, which we 
recollect reading at the time, and by his perseverance 
and exertions, many hundred thousand dollars were se- 
cured to the citizens of the United States. 



III. 

The friendship which subsisted betw^een Rufus King, 
Esq. and Mr. Gore was so long continued, and so rare, 
that no sketch of the character of either would be com- 
plete without adverting to it. It commenced at the Uni- 
versity, and was uninterrupted for the space of fifty 
years. It was more confidential, and more affectionate 
than almost any one which we have ever known, or of 
which we have any account, and is honourable to the 
character of them both. Few persons will feel more 
deeply the loss of Mr. Gore than the venerable and il- 
lustrious survivor of this uncommon friendship. 

IV. 

The shortness of the time in which Mr. Gore held the 
office of Governor of the State, was owing to the high 
state of excitement which prevailed in the Common- 
wealth ; and not to his want of popularity. He was 
elected to the Senate by handsome majorities by both 
houses, within three years after his period of office as 
Governor had expired. Governor Strong selected him at 
a most critical period of the war, for the most important 
office in the gift of the State. This appointment reminds 



19 



us of the strong attachment which many other men of 
eminence felt for Mr. Gore ; we shall only mention his 
warmest personal friends. They were Pickering, Hamil- 
ton, Ames, Cabot, Parsons, Jackson, Higginson, Gen. 
Lincoln and his lamented son, Mr. Mason of New Hamp- 
shire, Mr. Webster, &c. &c. His correspondence with 
these friends would furnish valuable materials for the his- 
tory of the first forty years of the National Government, 
and would prove the purity and disinterested patriotism 
of the framers and early defenders of the Constitution of 
the United States. It would elucidate the measures by 
which the enemies of that Constitution succeeded in un- 
dermining the public confidence in its true friends — a 
scene which is now reacting against the present adminis- 
tration. 



